Everyone’s trying to figure out personal branding and Twitter. Twitter is everywhere in the news right now – just yesterday the Wall Street Journal published How To Twitter:
“But I have to admit I didn’t understand the appeal of Twitter when I joined, at the prodding of friends, in November. One answer that explains its popularity: It’s not about chatting with your friends — it’s about promoting yourself”, says author Julia Angwin.
Brand yourself or brand your business?
Last week I was a guest lecturer at Karl Kasca’s New Media Marketing class at the UCLA Extension. After my presentation on the power of social media in branding, a student asked me this question,” I’m a business owner. I want to use social media and especially Twitter to drive growth and revenue. Should I brand myself or my business?”
Great question, and one that many are asking. Entrepreneurship seems to rise during hard times. People naturally take the opportunity to “cast their fate to the wind” and launch that business they’ve always dreamed of. Whether that’s a plumbing business, a PR firm, or an online marketing endeavor – we’re seeing a rash of new businesses springing up all around us. Add that to the popularity and even necessity of using social media tools in marketing and promotion and more and more folks are looking to develop a strategy around using platforms like Twitter.
Twitter is a dynamic communications tool
Many companies are looking for guidance with branding on Twitter. To begin with, they need to know how to use Twitter, what it’s all about, who should handle Twitter (marketing sales, PR,) who to follow, etc.
Then to the question: Should the CEO or business owner also have a Twitter profile? This is a great question and one that takes some time and thought. Good social media consultants will tell you that social media marketing requires a strategy – and it’s not necessarily the type of “boiler plate” marketing strategy companies may be used to.
This key question – should the CEO (and other key management) have a Twitter profile needs to be part of the social media strategy. 
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com is a highly visible CEO on Twitter right now and his profile is Zappos.com CEO. This strategy blends the brand. This is definitely a trend we’ll be seeing more of. Tony even posted a Beginner’s Guide that can be helpful to business owners and entrepreneurs
Richard Branson brands himself on Twitter; and Virgin has its own profile. Clearly, Richard Branson has a well-established personal brand and he’s maintaining and building that on Twitter. He does tweet about Virgin as well, so this is a great example of leveraging and cross-branding.
What do you think?
I’d love to hear from you on this topic.
- Should you brand yourself and your company?
- What’s your company’s strategy?
- Who’s doing it right?
Whatever strategy you adopt, it is important to know that while good personal branding involves self-promotion, there’s more to it. The social media world is all about “Give to Get” and engaging in two-way conversations.
As my good friend and partner at Gravity Summit, Rodney Rumford pointed out, the WSJ article is good for novices.
Rodney says, “However, the value comes from not what you are DOING; rather it comes from what you are THINKING and SHARING. is about CONVERSATIONS, building relationships and sharing; not hard sell marketing, broadcasting or ego-driven tweets. Twitter is a communications channel; how you choose to use it is up to you.”
Author:
Beverly Macy is the Managing Partner of Y&M Partners and teaches a social media class at the UCLA Extension. She also co-hosts Gravity Summit events.
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Last week’s strip of the Doonesbury comic did a great job summarizing the majority of Twitter activity so far that I have personally encountered – the “what random thing am I doing/random thought I feel I need to share” variety.
Getting businesses on board with engaging, conversation-driven blogs is still an issue, and Twitter, while seemingly simpler to implement due to the brevity of message, might be seen as a quicker (less painful) point of entry for some due solely to the perception of less work.
I absolutely believe business blogs are a key marketing/customer loyalty/PR differentiator when done right, but I am still on the fence as to the ultimate value of Twitter for general use. Why? Because it takes too much work/thought to be done in a way that matters to customers/fans rather than just annoying customers/fans.
Terence,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I do agree that business blogs are very effective. Twitter is a very different type of communications platform, however. It’s fascinating to me and I’m keeping close watch on the developments.
Terence,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I do agree that business blogs are very effective. Twitter is a very different type of communications platform, however. It’s fascinating to me and I’m keeping close watch on the developments.
Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!
Beverly,
This a great piece. I have studied twitter for sometine, I initially did not know the how and how effective twitter is until recently. I guess the CEO should tweet based on his/her personal branding as well as tweet for the company. The PR, Marketing group should also tweet. Though they need to undestand the initricasies that surround it.
I think Twitter is entering the next stage of its growth phase as more mainstream users and brands join. I am sure it will evolve to something very different than we are accustomed to. Hopefully, the user and community experience will continue to be positive. Thanks for sharing a chart from the Twitter survey on Brand perceptions that Peter Sorgenfrei and I ran in the fall. If you would like to read the whole thing, you can find it here, http://www.scribd.com/doc/7926212/Twitter-Brand-Perception-Survey-WS
[...] Using Twitter for Personal and Business Branding From Personal Branding Blog – Should you brand yourself or your business on Twitter? [...]
“Many companies are looking for guidance with branding on Twitter. To begin with, they need to know how to use Twitter, what it’s all about, who should handle Twitter (marketing sales, PR,) who to follow, etc.”
The problem with this statement is the fact that so many people who call themselves experts limit the functionality of Twitter to “marketing, sales, PR.”
In reality we are moving closer and closer to social media adoption across the entire enterprise. Until people think, and write, about all of the functions a social network can bring to an enterprise, CEOs will continue to believe they have to establish a Soc Media Dept rather than adopt across the enterprise.
Look at what the Scottsdale PD is doing with Twitter to understand just one of dozens of ways to utilize just one of hundreds of social networks. Until that type of mentality exists, these powerful tools will be under utilized.
[...] Using Twitter for Personal and Business Branding http://personalbrandingblog.com/using-twitter-for-personal-and-business-branding/ [...]
[...] you think share good resources. In simple terms, you should create value in your twitter profile. It’s a great tool for personal branding! One should also retweet the resourceful tweets of other [...]
[...] you think share good resources. In simple terms, you should create value in your twitter profile. It’s a great tool for personal branding! One should also retweet the resourceful tweets of other [...]
This is interested – and whilst I do use Twitter to both promote myself and my organisation I try to do it as independently as possible. However this also posing an issue, if customers and other relation professional people/bodies are following me on Twitter and LinkedIN and I leave my organisation – then those customers and contacts potentially come with me as well.
This poses a threat to some organisations I guess.